It has been 7 Months
Apr 26It has been a while since I have updated, I doubt that anyone actually reads this but I do not really mind. My other webpage does receive a lot of hits, so it’s all good.
What has changed in the last 7 months; well I figured out how to get into google ranks. That has been going very well. I have been number one for my key words for a long time, however I noticed today that I have dropped down to number two. That is a bit disappointing but I will get back onto it and get back to number one.
I have mostly been working on uCrack iFix, I have a new online store working. it is better, and now when I sell wholesale parts and just parts in general I always put them through the online store. It keeps the inventory updated, which is quite nice.
I changed universities; I am now studying Mechanical Engineering and Business at Queensland University of Technology. It is pretty odd, I only have to go 3 days a week, and one of those days is only a couple of hours at night. I think it is because I am only studying business units, while I figure out what to do with uCrack iFix as I need time to repair phones.
I do enjoy doing it, but it is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I would be ok with running it, and working at it when I have time. Ideally though I would get it into a position where someone else can run it for me, and do the repairs and answer the phone calls. However, it is already reaching that point where I am too busy to repair as many phones as I would like. There was a time when I would be able to do about 10 phones a day, but these days it is closer to about 20 phones a week. I get a lot more calls than I actually have time for, and most of the time if people want it done straight away I cannot help them, as I book up fairly quickly. I think I might need to make a big commitment in the near future, and get some employees, and get an actual retail store. That would leave me to work when I wanted to, but let someone else organise it. The hardest part is finding someone who is as good with iphones, smartphones as I am and has the desire to learn how to repair them.
As always, I have a few other business ideas in my head. Some are just webpages but I do have a few physical products. Some are good; some are average some I think are great! Once I have developed the ideas a little more I will start to share them, but at the very least, I would like to get a mock-up of the webpages running to make it easier to explain to people what it is about. I mostly want to do it just to see ideas turn into something; I always find marketing these products the hardest thing to do. I can do SEO on google, but some of these ideas are not something that people search for. One idea can easily be integrated into twitter/facebook and be shared, and it is one of those ideas that people would want to share, and once people see, it would want to try it out. That will get people talking and people will start to go there and look at it themselves.
The hardest part is finding a web-developer, I have not looked around that much but I am on a very tight budget. I know I could learn how to do it myself, but unfortunately, I do not have that kind of time available anymore. I think I will need to outsource it, but that has some problems. I think it might be the best idea though.
I could write for ages about this, that and other things but nothing else is really all that exciting. I hope that I will write again soon, as it is nice to get these ideas out and down on paper/screen.
iPhone Repair, Parts and Cases
Sep 06I have spent all of my free time perfecting my latest venture, iPhone repair business. It is called uCrack iFix, so you can google it or you can click on the lovely link that is just about to follow. uCrack iFix | iPhone Repair Brisbane
It is slowly crawling up the google search ranks for iPhone Repairs Brisbane and a couple of other search terms. I am now on the first page which is a huge achievement, surprisingly it isn’t all that difficult once you figure out what you need to do. So if you want some help to get your web page to appear in google, let me know and we can work something out.
I am working on an online store for uCrack iFix. This will let people pay for, and mail me their phones. All the money, shipping, members will be done via the store webpage. Also will sell iPhone Parts as well as cases, accessories. Might venture out into other phone parts and accessories (such as HTC & Nokia) but we will see what happens.
There is not many products on the store yet it is still in the testing phase. I am testing paymate, paypal and a few other payment options. But soon it will become a fully fledged site with all the cases and parts that you can imagine! iPhone Parts
In the mean time I am running a very small and very simple store from the main uCrack iFix webpage, it looks terrible compared to the other store. WordPress should just stick to CMS and not try to venture out into e-commerce.
A new Theme!
Jul 24I have just got a heap of new themes. It still requires some minor customisation to look good. I need to change the text and logo.
I will get onto this once I have time.
‘Warning: Invalid argument supplied’ & Other Errors
Jul 07I just recovered my database from a previous backup of WordPress. However I had to change the prefix for the databases, and overcome an error. The that was displayed appeared when I tried to log into wp-admin was;
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home//public_html/wp-content/themes/constructor/libs/Constructor/Abstract.php on line 242
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home//public_html/wp-content/themes/constructor/libs/Constructor/Abstract.php:242) in /home//public_html/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 868
If you don’t already know WordPress stores all the posts, comments, settings and other important in a SQL database, and not in the files on the server.
This means that to back up a WordPress site you need to not only copy the files and folders in the public_HTML but also the Databases. There are several plugins that will back up both the databases and the SQL databases for you, and email them to you.
This time when I lost my hosting I had a recent backup, however I couldn’t remember if I had updated to WordPress 3.0 before or after the backup was taken. Usually to restore a wordpress install I would copy over the files to the server, from the zip file that was emailed to me and then import the databses using PhpMyAdmin. Previously, this has worked with no dramas but that was because the wp-config, used to configure wordpress and database were the same.
Updated, New & Old
Jul 06I don’t think many people actually read this, I don’t really mind but for those who do I changed hosts … again. The host I was using had someone on his account place cracked applications on it, so they suspended his account.
I had done fairly regular backups, but not regular enough as the latest updates I had done were not reflected in the backups I had. It isn’t really a big deal as it wasn’t anything important but still it is some what frustrating. The worse part was that the sites that I had hosted have been lost, and I know at least one of them the owner hadn’t backed up.
Restoring this data was a pretty big effort since I had changed a lot of the settings, and updated to wordpress 3.0. This will be covered in another post, maybe one day someone will use what I have written to recover their own wordpress site.
When I found out about that I decided that perhaps I would invest in an official reseller account. Previously it was just an account from a friend from a forum, but this is more official and I get better support. It only costs a bit more than I was paying before, so it isn’t bad by any means. It should also be more reliable and faster.
I even signed up for an ABN (Australian Business Number) so I could register a .com.au domain. The reasons for this will remain hush-hush until the site is somewhat developed.
Even though it is holidays and I was really looking forward to getting on with my RFID Reader/Writer I haven’t had any spare time. First I was organising this hosting, organising other web pages, playing the latest Grand Theft Auto (it is important!), selling iPhones and setting up this soon to be announce venture. They have taken up most of my time.
I hope in the coming days I will be able to at least order the parts for the RFID but I don’t know if I will have enough time to get it all finished before university starts again.
I need to make my own!
Jun 07This will be short, but Logitech now has an app that simulates what their range of harmony remotes do.
After seeing this I thought that there must be some way to mimic the Harmony Link box, and be able to use this app and all the features without having to fork out the money to purchase it. I assume that is where they are going to make their money, by charming a fortune for the box and giving the app away for free or next to nothing. I will need to research ways to simulate it and hope that it can be done for much less than what it would cost just to purchase it.
New host!
May 27I am just posting to say that I have changed hosting providers, well not really. It is from the same person but now I am using a paid account. It’s fairly cheap and I can host other peoples webpages. That will be handy because I know a couple of people who want to make web pages. One of the sites is to be an online comic. So I will sell them for between $1-3/month just send me an email and we can work something out.
Having a reseller account means we can all get hosting cheaply. The main advantage of the paid hosting is that this webpage should be online more often. It was fairly temperamental.
So if you need or want some hosting, send me an email and ask. [Post Author] at Arnold-Producks dot com